APPLES Reflection 1

Our team is developing software for Kinetik AI, an organization focused on helping companies better understand and act on their marketing and engagement data. The core need we are meeting is the absence of a unified system that measures how potential clients engage with a business—specifically their interest, intent, and ideal fit. Without such a system, organizations often rely on scattered spreadsheets and intuition to guide outreach efforts, which leads to wasted time and missed opportunities.

By creating a 3D engagement cube that scores accounts along these dimensions, our project provides Kinetik AI with a data-driven framework to identify where attention should be focused. This supports Kinetik AI’s broader goal of making advanced analytics accessible to small and midsize businesses that lack in-house data-science expertise. The importance of this need lies in enabling organizations to work more efficiently and make informed decisions based on transparent, interpretable metrics rather than guesswork.

Our work directly contributes to Kinetik AI’s mission of democratizing intelligent decision-making—bridging academic research, practical software development, and real-world business impact. Through this service-learning experience, we are not only honing our technical skills but also learning how thoughtful software design can create measurable value for organizations working to make a difference in their communities.